The Owner of LocalEyes Video Production Turned His Side-Gig Into a Full-Fledged, Million-Dollar Business
Ryan Elam
Founder, LocalEyes Video Production
The only problem? While he was a master video producer, running a full-fledged business felt foreign and difficult.
The Challenge
Ryan knew what he wanted from his video production business—a means to support himself and his soon-to-be family, a way to turn what he loved doing into a full time job, and freedom in his own life.
But he felt lost, not knowing what really needed to happen in order to make his business come to life. He knew he needed to develop skills in:
Building, leading, and managing a team
Tracking metrics to make better decisions
Creating and using repeatable processes
Growth strategy
Leadership
...and more!
The Solution
He and his coach began by implementing foundational work crucial to setting the business up for a team and gaining a strategy for the future. Using a mixture of methodologies like EOS, Traction, Profit First, and Value Builder, Ryan’s coach helped him to create a business vision, core values, rhythm, organizational charts, and implement a scalable metrics dashboard.
With foundations in place, they then developed a strategy, starting with the 3 year vision and working backwards. Once established, they developed a rhythm of meeting weekly with extended quarter reviews to reset and re-engage every 90 days to stay focused on the most important pieces.
Keeping this pace, Ryan and his coach have worked together for nearly 5 years, adjusting and augmenting his growth as a business owner and leader as his company has grown. From leadership development and understanding how a “change culture” is beneficial, to helping him decentralize his role and set up strong structured and reliable teams, his coach has helped him see a different viewpoint on decisions, interview candidates, integrate principles into a process, document goal-achieving processes, track assessment growth, and more.
The Result
While once shy of hiring, managing and leading people for his company, he now is comfortable with his role as leader, with processes in place that he can rely on. Similarly, while unsure with tracking and evaluation, Ryan now has scorecards, dashboards, and even a dedicated team member focused on data entry so he can have the most up-to-date performance information to make better decisions and understand exactly where to put his focus.
And the monetary result? His revenues have grown from $250k in his first year to $2M (and over a 30% profit margin) this year, with an achievable goal to be over $5M in revenue and over 1M in EBITDA in the next five years.
At the same time, he’s been working with his coach to start an AirBnB business and is developing the plans to start a third business. He now operates solely in his zone of genius, focusing on vision, strategic planning and marketing while the rest of the day-to-day operations are handled by his team whom he meets with regularly.
This all means that Ryan’s future is completely up to him. Having already reduced his work week from 60+ hours/week to less than 20, he is free to focus on his family, his health, and other business opportunities. In 5 years he can choose to sell his business or retain it as an owner-independent asset that will continue to give him a steady income.
The freedom that Ryan once dreamed of is now a reality.